The subject matter is unlikely fuel for comedy. Matt King is a workaholic lawyer, attempting to come to terms with the fact that his wife Joanie is in a terminal coma, leaving him with two daughters. As if this wasn’t enough, we soon discover that Joanie was having an affair, and also that Matt is soon to determine the sale of his family’s ancestral property, making millionaires out of himself and his cousins.
In this dark territory, Hemmings creates in Matt a wonderfully human narrator, able to comprehend both the tragedy and the farce in this eminently believable narrative. The novel is most effective when Matt is most impotent; attempting to explain to a linguistically challenged woman why it is inappropriate to sell bikini photos of his underage daughter in a hospital shop; listening in bewilderment while role-playing his comatose wife while his still younger daughter tells a tall tale about sea urchins and self-harm. This Hawaii is subverts the stereotypes, and even younger readers will appreciate the detachment with which its narrator views its inhabitants.
